


day sixteen: what do you hear

by Hannah (hannahoftheinternet)



Series: HartmonFest 2019 [16]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Fluff and Angst, Hartmon Fest 2019, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Minor Injuries, Morning After, Moving In Together, POV Hartley Rathaway, POV Third Person, Pansexual Cisco Ramon, Present Tense, Pride, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 17:45:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahoftheinternet/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: Five times Cisco and Hartley say "I love you" without actually saying it, and one time they do actually say it.





	day sixteen: what do you hear

There are a thousand ways to say “I love you.”

***

Cisco’s eyes open slowly, the heart monitor registering a change in his heartbeat. “Hey, Hart.”

“Hey.” Hartley grips Cisco’s hand, relief flooding him as warm fingers squeeze back. “How do you feel?”

“Like I just fought a steamroller,” Cisco chuckles. “God, my head hurts. How long was I out?”

It’s hard to force the words out. “Fourteen hours,” Hartley says finally. “You were out for fourteen hours.”

Cisco tries to sit up, but flops back down with a groan of pain. “Holy fuck. What the hell happened? The last thing I remember is facing off with that robber.”

“As far as we can tell from your suit cam, he hit you with his powers. Disoriented you. You opened a breach back to S.T.A.R. Labs, but when you got through, you…” Hartley closes his eyes.

He’d been there when Cisco stumbled through the breach. He had been horribly pale, and seconds after the breach closed, he pitched forward, slamming his head into the floor with a sickening  _ crunch _ . It’s easily one of the most horrendous things Hartley has ever witnessed.

“You fainted,” he says gently. “And hit your head.”

Cisco touches his forehead tentatively. There’s a fist-sized bruise where his skull made contact with the tiles, black and ugly at the edges. “I can tell.” He leans back against the pillow, closing his eyes again, and Hartley feels a rush of concern.

“I can go if you want to sleep,” he says, gently trying to extract his fingers from Cisco’s grip, but Cisco clutches his hand tighter.

“I want to sleep. But stay.” His eyes are still closed.

Hartley nods, even though Cisco can’t see him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

***

Hartley wakes up aware that he’s wearing a shirt, but not quite knowing why. As far as he knows, he passed out without putting on any clothes, which leaves him with two options: either Cisco dressed him (possible--Cisco’s a lot stronger than he looks--but unlikely) or he dressed in the middle of the night and doesn’t remember (more likely; he’s prone to somnambulism).

He’s not wearing pants or underwear, either. Just a shirt. Which is even weirder. And weirder still, Cisco isn’t there, even though it’s his bed that Hartley is currently sitting in.

Unable to quell his instinct to investigate, he gets out of bed, finds and dons his discarded underwear, and wanders out of the bedroom. Upon doing so, he immediately bumps into his boyfriend, who lets out a little shriek.

“Jesus Christ,” Cisco says, the hand not holding a spatula clutching the doorjamb for balance. “I thought you were still asleep.”

“I wasn’t,” Hartley informs him, taking in his appearance. Cisco is wearing a bathrobe, gray sweatpants that look very soft, and polka-dotted socks. A purple bite mark is visible just above the line of the bathrobe, which Hartley eyes with approval. “Are you cooking something?”

“Pancakes,” Cisco says sheepishly. “I remember you said a couple weeks ago that you liked banana pancakes. I thought maybe I could make you some if you ever… stayed over.”

Hartley considers this. “If I get banana pancakes whenever we have sex, I hope we have sex every night.”

Cisco laughs, “Right, ‘cause that’s the best part about sex.”

***

**C:** did you buy chips

**H:** For what?

**C:** please don’t tell me you forgot

**H:** Oh, the housewarming party. I’m a little tied up right now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

**C:** ffs hart all our friends are going to be there

**C:** what are you working on

**H:** Same thing you left we working on.

**C:** okay that’s fair

**H:** I’ll be home in half an hour.

**C:** i’ll cover for you

***

“Does it look okay?” Hartley picks at the front of his shirt self-consciously. There’s a giant rainbow flag plastered across the front. “It’s kind of… jarring.”

“Hart,” Cisco says patiently, applying the final touches of his face paint. “It’s pride. Everything there is jarring. I still can’t believe you’ve never been to pride.”

“This is my first year not being A) closeted, B) disowned, or C) a supervillain.” He ticks off the roles on his fingers. “I don’t think I’ve ever worn anything rainbow before.”

Cisco gives him a poor-baby sort of look. “I’ve been to pride every year since I came out. I’ve collected a lot of rainbows.”

He’s right. At this moment, he’s wearing a tee shirt with a huge pink-yellow-and-blue frying pan across it, a good number of rainbow buttons, a jean jacket with rainbow patches, and pansexual pride face paint. 

Looking at Cisco, Hartley suddenly doesn’t find his own shirt quite so bold.

“You look great, Hart,” Cisco says, kissing him quickly. “You always look great.”

***

Hartley can feel his face getting red, feel his anger about to boil over. “You’re so goddamn self-righteous, you know that? You never stop and listen to anyone else. You could have  _ died _ , Cisco.”

“I knew what I was doing!” Cisco fires back. Blood leaks from a cut on his forehead, and his upper lip is crusted with the same from his nose. “I’m here, right? I’m not dead. Everything turned out fine.”

“133 micro breaches!” Hartley almost screams. “133! You almost collapsed at 56! We didn’t need you to make that many jumps; we had it handled!”

“You wouldn’t have caught Ash without me.”

“Is one capture worth your life?”

They’re inches apart when all the fight suddenly bleeds out of Hartley. Cisco’s heaving for breath, probably from both the argument and lasting damage to his system from the 133 breaches he opened and closed. Worse, Cisco is right. They wouldn’t have caught Ash Tyler if Cisco hadn’t confused him with his breaches.

“Don’t do anything that stupid ever again,” he says. “Ever.”

***

They’re sitting on the couch in their house, watching  _ Star Wars _ for the eightieth time, when Cisco says, out of the blue, “Will you marry me?”

Hartley doesn’t really process that at first. “What?”

“Marry me,” Cisco says, leaning into him. “We’re pretty much married anyway. Might as well make it official.”

Two sets of heartbeats echo in Hartley’s ears. Cisco’s is just as fast as his. How is he acting so calm? How can anyone act calm when they’ve just proposed?

“I love you,” Hartley says, and that’s an answer in and of itself.  _ Yes. Yes. I love you. Let’s get married. I love you. _

***

You just have to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another creative take on the prompt.
> 
> Comments are a writer's best friend!


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